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May 24, 2006 The reason that I care what you, Patrick Hurley, believe, is best expressed in this sentence, at the very end of your bit: Until then [death and/or the end of the world], enjoy your abortion beliefs and your Madonna concerts making fun of Him [The Christian God]. It's because you influence people who may vote, and because you may vote yourself and use dogma to back up your political ideas. I am pro-choice, Pat – that's politics. If you offer your reason for being pro-life as your acceptance of the love Jesus has for you, then it is my goal to attack the foundation of your belief because it benefits me politically and therefore, personally. That sounds shallow and rude, but is it? If fellow useless-knowledge writer Brooks Mick uses the Laffer curve as evidence that taxes should be lowered, then I gotta look into Laffer, or find counter evidence, or learn some economics in order to counter his argument. With your view of abortion, I gotta look into Jesus, or find counter evidence - do you see where I'm going with this? If you want to provide your faith as a backing for policy which affects me personally, then I must attack the reasons behind your choosing of policies which affect me, well, personally. Nothing personal, Pat ;) What if I like Madonna, and her sexy ways? Why would you deny me this? Do you have a reason? Might those reasons involve Christianity? Do any atheists try to deny you Christian pop? I don't want you to change your personal beliefs per se, but I do want to point out the flaws in your religion and I want to enforce secularism in the public square, so you are further prevented from using your faith-based ideas against what I perceive as dangerous. But that's just me – us atheists are a varied bunch. I don't question your intelligence – anyone that reads you on a regular basis as I do wouldn't think to do that. I do question your knowledge, however – there is a difference. You are better writer than I and you may be more intelligent. But you were wrong about evolution and you are also wrong about atheists. Atheists are not agnostics. Do you believe in unicorns? You cannot absolutely rule out that they don't exist, right (that's called proving a negative)? Are you a unicorn agnostic? Myself, I have no problem saying that I do not believe in unicorns – try it, it's easy. Most atheists don't say that gods absolutely don't exist or cannot exist. If that's the basis of your reasoning, then you need to do more research. Every atheist that I've ever met or spoken with is technically a “weak atheist”. Many of us just think that there isn't evidence for the existence of any gods. Will that change in the future? Who knows? Is believing without good evidence a good thing? No, it's a brainless thing and the root cause of most of the evil on this little globe going back millennia! I don't know how one can say that Einstein knew 5% of what there is to know, if we don't know all that there is to know – we are missing a key piece in our equation. But for the sake of argument, let's say we humans do know 5% of everything. That 5% gives us not one, not a single, not an iddy-biddy lil' ol' reason to believe in any gods. The American Atheist's logo is an atom, with the bottom missing. It's missing to represent all that we do not yet know. But we do know atoms exist, and we do know that life evolved, so quibbling over what little we do know is a pointless waste of the human endeavor for survival. Christians used to tell us not to bathe, then they told us not to put lightning rods on churches and now they tell us not to accept evolution. Even when we knew just 1%, they quibbled over that 1%. Finally, please spare me the “you will stand before Christ” bit, Pat, you are too smart for that line. That may indeed be what you believe in your heart of hearts, but surely you can see the obvious flaws with that kind of reasoning. There are, uhm, other religions, with different, er, gods. There isn't a universal duality between Jesus or Nothing. We could both stand judgment in front of Zeus or Vishnu. Ya see, as I've mentioned many times, if faith counts as evidence, then all faiths are correct. Can they all be correct? Not according to folks who believe as you do, lol. How would you go about disproving Islam or Hindu, Pat? Would you not use evidence? If so, why doesn't this work against Christianity as well? People can't live inside living sea-creatures, therefore, the Bible is inaccurate, lol, and all bets are off. Elephant statues don't drink milk, lol, therefore, the Hindu god Ganesh is probably a pile of imagination and not a sentient deity, therefore, all bets are off. Do you see how this works? You are almost as much of an atheist as I am, Pat. You disbelieve in all of the gods save one. Look, assuming we can't really know anything and don't really know anything yet, why not stick with secularism? It prevents us from using faith against each other – you get to keep eating beef even if it pisses off the Hindu, and the Hindu get to keep working on the Christian sabbath, even if it pisses you off. Policy which affects us all should be based on that which we can and should all agree on, in other words, where possible, we should use evidence not based on faith. It's pretty simple. Have you read anything from me attacking the Amish? The average Amish person is much more religious than you, Pat Hurley. Why might that be? You are smart – think about that for a while. THEIR holy trinity is me, myself and I. Isn't pride the #1 sin? Thought so. No. Assuming we pick Christianity out of all of the many religions, the first sin protects the pride of God: “Thou shalt have no God before me”. Just being a good person isn't good enough for an all knowing being, apparently. God was more interested in having followers than in peace and harmony, for without this commandment, think about how much better history might have been. ------------ About the author Frederick Smith: I enjoy writing about the positive virtues of humanism - humanists are the good guys. I now have a blog that I will start to increasingly maintain and update. Here is the link: fredsuberview.blogspot.com/ About my personal background and life: I was born, I got some education, worked, ate, and had some kids. It seems I like to write � something that was unknown to me until relatively recently...How's that for detail? ;) Hate mail is welcome unless you are from the Army Of God. Please! It's not that I mind seeing pictures of aborted fetuses in my inbox, but once you've seen one you've pretty much seen them all... Email: dahlek65@gmail.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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